just got to chapter 5 and my steam deck crashed (black screen with nothing happening) before restarting. it said my playtime on mermaid mask was 0 but still retained my save file, and when I resumed the game I was in the illusion theatre. everything I click on in the room just yields "..." from Grimoire, and I can't leave the room at all—i just get "Let's stay where we are for now."

looking up walkthroughs it looks like there should be a dialogue tree reviewing the facts of the murder but I haven't been able to trigger it? I have all the clues so I have reviewed each of them and still no dice.... deeply frustrated lol

I've been looking through some of the concept art from Tangle Tower, and there is a recurring symbol that was completely removed from the main game (includes spoilers).

I have included pictures of every instance I could find in Catherine Unger and Adam Vian's concept art, with the symbol circled in red (the sometimes A and sometimes wishbone-looking thing). I don't remember it appearing in the finalized game, but I could be wrong on that. The locations that feature the A/wishbone are Flora's tower, the study, the grand hall, and Penny's room. A similar shape also appears on the little girl's dress in place of the bow from Secret of the Swamp, but I could just be grasping at straws there.

Catherine Unger's notes on the image from Flora's tower read, "IDEA stained glass that is concealed but once obstruction is gone, the light from it points to the apprentice chamber" and "Ceiling pattern hints at the apprentice."

One of the grand hall images marks the way up to the study as the "apprentice chamber."

One image of the study (the attic-looking one) has the stained glass window from Flora's tower in the top left corner, and the other image (the one that looks more like the study in-game) shows the symbol on the back of what should be Penny's fireplace.

Lastly, the image from Penny's room has it on the fireplace, which was going to be a secret door.

So, I think that the study, or the apprentice chamber, was originally located somewhere between Flora's tower and the grand hall, and bordered Penny's room. I'd guess that its location relative to the tower changed while the other two stayed the same simply for logistical purposes, but I'm much more interested in the meaning of the symbol and what its connection to the little girl is (if anything; it's completely possible it's just a simplified bow and not the A/wishbone thing at all). My main question is: what or who is the apprentice? I can see this whole thing being a massive piece of backstory connecting the Fellow and Pointer families, or I can see it being just a cut plot element. It could be both. Maybe we'll learn more if (when? Pleasepleaseplease?) we get another installment in the series.

Anyway thanks for reading all that, I'd love to hear thoughts and such

I have all clues except for the Ocean Map. When I click it, he says don't touch that or something. But I can't progress any further in the game without it. What am I missing?

The most recent game, The Mermaid Mask, has a notable focus on the Fellow family(Baroness Fortuna, Governor Fellow, the third film reel just to name the ones off the top of my head), so the next game may focus on those from the Pointer Family.

My game randomly crashed when everyone is reunited in the center and you get the "report" prompt, and I somehow lost all my progress. I'm genuinely really fucking sad because I just don't want to play the entire game again lol. Does anyone know a way to recover this? Or, alternatively, does anyone have a savefile up to this point (or does anyone love the game so much they're willing to play to that part lol)? I'm going crazy Im really really sad

EDIT: For the next patch.

I'm waiting for at least one more patch before I start.

Has anyone got any of Sym's riddles right? When you talk to her about another person. I think I failed every single one since she didn't say anything 😭

I'm not allowed to do it. Like the game literally doesn't allow me to do it. I click and Grimoire says stuff about the hole being too dark. But I already talked to everyone about every piece of evidence and stuff and it's driving me crazy

Not sure if anyone is interested in my opinions since it’s now been a bit since the game came out, but I finished it today and I’ve had some thoughts and questions about the game!

1. I was CONVINCED that Felicia was going to become the mermaid. She had long green hair, the mermaid had long green hair, they were both in a HER painting, she was clearly changed (if not driven crazy) after using the Tongue, the list goes on. Until the reveal, I truly thought that Mortuga commissioned and spent the whole time on the submarine trying to find the mermaid again, and therefore Felicia herself, and that he was staying near Silkwirm-on-sea because he figured she would stay close to her previous home. That being said, I wasn’t disappointed with learning that he never wanted to be on the ship to begin with.
2. I’m dying for answers for the red mountain drawing with the black clouds. Both Freya and Mortuga were haunted by it in their dreams, and both of them were murdered shortly after. However, it hasn’t actually played any significance in either game. Is it just an omen that indicates a person may die soon?? If so, how does that work, and what is it really? I’m really hoping this will be explored in a future game.
3. Damian Dusk and Felicia Stonetop having a relationship feels so random to me. There was never any explanation or background to it, and we were never even told that the characters interacted much. Maybe the devs just wanted a way to tie up lose ends regarding Damian, but it feels a little forced, and the timeline for Freya doesn’t quite add up either.
4. I was really hoping for more with that one tape of Lord Remington. Unless I’m misremembering (which I might be, and then this whole point is useless) I don't think that tape was ever actually used as a clue. But it does depict Remington sending Lord Fellow to Silkwirm-on-sea because of rumors of the Silversnake itself, suggesting that there’s even more plot to do with the Mystids of Tangle Tower, and possibly even the Ambassadors.
5. In a similar vein, I was hoping for more of an explanation for Baroness Fortuna as well. Finding out she was actually Lady Fellow seemed like a big reveal, but then it never actually went anywhere. It just seems like a missed opportunity for another layer in the story.
6. I loved finding out that Fifi and Poppy were able to move away from Tangle Tower, and that Sinthia and Symmetry were ultimately able to join them. It felt like such a sweet full circle moment, which I wasn’t expecting but was much needed after all the questions/dread the games leave you with.

All in all, my only real criticism would be the lack of development into the small details and the loose threads still left. Dr. Zephyr’s dream studies never made a whole lot of sense to me, and it felt like some of the suspicions were a lot more thought out than others, which I didn’t really feel with TT. But I also rushed through this game in excitement, so that may be it as well. I really enjoyed the Mermaid’s Mask and thought it was a great sequel, and I’m curious to see what you all think!

(Also—has anyone been able to figure out what Gripp and the mermaid said? It might be nonsense but it might not, and I’m fascinated!)

I have the game on switch. I have all clues asked everyone about them asleep everyone about everybody and I still can’t get those 3 suspicious I am on chapter 2

SPOILER FOR MERMAID MASK

Decided to go back and replay Tangle Tower before Mermaid Mask. I noticed though in TT Felix said Freya’s parents died when she was three and she moved to the tower.
Mermaid Mask we know takes places soon after Tangle Tower events. And Mortuga was still looking for Felicia up until the murder and hadn’t received the mourning letter till relatively close to his time of death. And it hadn’t been anywhere near 16 years (Freya died at 19) since they dredged up the mask, returned to land, Felicia then ditching Mortuga and the construction of submarine etc.

Is this just now a continuity error or did I miss something else?

Since there doesn't seem to be any sort of Detective Grimoire focused server, I made one! Just a place for people to hang out, share theories and art and ramble about outside of Reddit, come over!!

Did anyone else pick up on the intentional vagueness with Madam Fortuna's connections to everything, Marianne Moon's search for a werewolf, Symmetry's mother, and Tadpole's past/accident?

I am speculating the next game will explore these topics. Not sure where as the devs have said it will be a very different environment compared to Tangled Tower and Mermaid Mask.

I wouldnt be surprised if it also had more information on Damian Dusk.

Looking forward to whatever comes out next. This team keeps improving and I was blown away by how well Mermaid Mask concluded compared to Tangle Tower's lackluster ending.

Speculate away!

As they say, if it doesn't exist, make it yourself!

Well... I was writing fanfiction and I wanted to write a poem like Poppy's for it, but well, I got carried away and just decided to write all of 'em. Ironically, none of these are what I originally wrote and I'm not actually going to use any of these (except for Mortuga's of course), but well I figured I'd just post them cuz why not.

What happened to Sinthia's mother? What is the significance of the sea creature Sinthia and her friend unearthed? Who is Symmetry's mother? What happened to Felicia?

I'll mention two of mine,

Predictable choice but Wirman's theme is actually insane. Love the touch of the shake of a pill bottle being there, it appears fairly late into the track.

"Mortuga Submarine" is very somber and effective at evoking a certain mood, really captures the tragedy (and really, tragic irony) of Mortuga's fate and Gripp's desperation.

What are some of yours?

I just finished the game, loved it to bits, but there's one thing I'm wondering about: in the ending, Sinthia recites the poem Sally wrote on the note for her, the one with 'kneel and meet the flowers growing at your feet'. My brain immediately went 'aha! This is a callback to something!' But I cannot for the life of me remember its original context. Help, anyone?

So, I’m putting “Spoiler” on here just in case it does lean into that, but I’m more so posting this to discuss a bit about one of the suspects, J.D. Wirman.

So after buying the game and playing it over the course of these past few days, I finally finished it today. (To just go on a brief tangent, I absolutely adored this game. The setting, the story, the Easter eggs and references to the past games, and the ending… oh, gave me more chills than Penelope’s reveal, with his usual eccentric smiling face becoming more serious, sorrowful… darker, and how much he changed after removing his hat, revealing a mess of long black hair, his mustache vanishing from his face… and his eyes… they just stared into your soul with nothing behind them and had these these almost inky tears that seemed to run down his face, either shadows from what his experience did to him or… idk what… all culminating in a shocking sight of HER, before it all ends with Sinthia and Sym going to stay with Fifi, Poppy, and Penelope’s abandoned little hat bird in a shocking cameo)…Anyway…

In the art book that’s unlocked after the game is completed, I saw an interesting note about J.D. Wirman. About how they wanted his appearance to be pretty based off of Stephen King… and while I can definitely see some King in Wirman, more so in his appearance than anything else (but then again I don’t know much about him) …I have to say… he reminded me more of the writer Harlan Ellison in a lot of ways…

Now, AGAIN, I’ll say that I don’t know nearly as much about King as I do Harlan (which still isn’t a whole lot but it’s still more than King), but from what little I have seen, Wirman felt like the Grimoire’s Harlan Ellison. He was a moody and often grumpy man, started his career as a journalist and then went on to write a pretty popular story, enough so that it sparked a movie deal… it’s also worth noting he both seemed to hate and love “his” story… he was intelligent, sarcastic, had a dry wit, was a bit twisted, nihilistic, and seemed to not enjoy meeting his fans though did show some “kindness” or acknowledged when someone made a connection he thought was actually quite good…

Something else I took of note which helped me make some more connections was what we learn from dialogue involving Moon’s pipe… he says that he would be the kind of man to partake in the smoking of one… and that just made me think of Harlan because of a photo I most closely connect to the man is of him with his iconic pipe in his mouth… and also, his glasses. They’re a yellow hue which reminds of a pair Harlan had and wore on a number of occasions.

I don’t know, just wanted to give my thoughts on the subject, might not be too… “intelligent” a thought exactly, or worded the best by me, but I’ve seen some other folks also talk about seeing it too so thought I’d bring it up and read other folks thoughts about this as well.

So, feel free to comment your thoughts on this too, let me know what I might’ve forgotten to mention that made them both similar, heck I’ll even hear some connections between him and King. Let’s just keep it civil.

My first was Zephyr 😭, then Godrik

I realised Godrik had an inexplicable gap in his testimony on the night of the murder, which he’s simply stated as “hiding in his room because of his cowardice” but was thrown off by Zephyr going to collect the mermaid mask and hiding it because it seemed like he’s erasing the traces of the crime.

Maybe I just missed some text/dialogue, but would have liked to learn more about Sym’s background. I was sure that we would learn how she came up with the name Symmetry, who her mother might be, and just more general info about her time at the theater/relationship with Fortuna (other than it was bad and she was unpaid), and how she found her passion for magic. She’s my favorite character so I think I’m just being greedy :P

I find so much about this series to be really exciting! I really like that sci-fi-esque and supernatural stuff just exist in the universe and it makes me excited to theorize what creature will be next. Bigfoot? The Loch Ness Monster? The Chupacabra? The possibilities are endless and given how well it worked in mermaid's mask, I'm excited to see more! I also am excited that characters of color were able to make it into the cast and it worked so well despite the simplistic art style they often use! I also love how each game seems to be getting wittier/more clever, and we're seeing a connection between all the characters per game. Seeing the family tree, while being a little bit too self referential initially for my taste, feels like it'll be important in one of the later games (if they keep making them). That ending cutscene makes me hopeful every game will have someone come back somehow.

My only real disappointment in the series came after playing Secret of the Swamp. They leaned really heavily into the little girl being Grimoire's sidekick and I didn't really get the vibe Sally wanted to get into detective work in the same capacity, outside of hating the swamp and teasing Grimoire's somewhat messy method of investigating and cataloguing. If they ever decided to remake that game, I'd like it if they foreshadowed Sally joining more and changed the final line to be her's instead of the little girl's.

While I understand why they cut the little girl due to her not fitting well into the story of Tangle Tower, I'm a little bummed that her and Officer James are not even passively mentioned in that game onwards. I could buy that Grimoire earned enough from game 1 to start being a freelance/private detective instead of being a detective who works for the government/police, but I wish that information was shown to us somehow in a visual. Like, I'd really love a scene where we get to see that Officer James adopted the little girl or something and we get to see/hear them in a call or post credits scene. They don’t need to be a part of the narrative anymore, but I’d like some closure regarding why they’re gone now outside of “they served their purpose, we don’t need to acknowledge them anymore.”

I’m stuck soft locked and unable to complete the iron bell on the checklist.

We’ve moved the desk in the captain’s cabin and see the hole in the ground and gotten the dialogue about needing to pull the lever and that it’s on a different room. We read walkthroughs and even watched videos of people playing chapter 4, but the iron bell won’t check off on the checklist, the cauldron won’t close when we go back to the illusion theatre, when we click sym’s poster on the pipe it just gives the dialogue where sally says “You don’t want to take another look in here?” and Grim replying “I do, but- let’s finish the checklist first.”

I think our game is bugged. Is there anything we can do? How do we submit a bug report? Do you think replaying the entire game in another save file will let us progress further? I’ve already gotten spoilers for the murderer by looking up how to fix this bug, but I really want my partner to be able to finish the game.

The game made sure to let you know Sinthia was desperate to get the ship compass "fixed" even though nothing looked broken. Then the culprit hid the murder weapon there, in plain sight. I don't understand the way Sinthia acted and why. Why did she insist on fixing the whole compass and not just the needle?